Stuff reports:

A businessman has been jailed for his role in the country’s largest cigarette smuggling case.

The man and his company have interim name suppression and appeared at the Auckland District Court on Thursday after earlier admitting charges of defrauding customs, making erroneous entries in customs documents and selling goods without paying duties.

The operation involved the smuggling of over 19 million cigarettes into Auckland, hidden inside office cabinets imported from China. The smuggling avoided excise customs duties of over $18 million.

When the tax is $1 a cigarette the black market becomes a very attractive proposition for smugglers.

Collette Devlin writes:

Her demeanour, as she rattled off the list, could be likened to a primary school teacher addressing a class. Ardern was at pains to point out that these ‘”rules” were needed to keep the virus at bay and “prevent a return to where we have been” – and no-one wants to return to lockdown.

The message itself isn’t the problem, but it’s far from a rule and Ardern’s patronising delivery was not motivating. As the country grows weary of Government edicts, she risks losing her captaincy of the team of five million. No matter how many times we’re told to “be kind”.

Everytime I see a billboard urging me to be kind, it makes me the opposite.

Around 500 people have donated to Kiwiblog or subscribed to my Patreon. I’m very humbled and appreciative of the support.

I am very motivated to increase the number of analytical and data intensive posts I do, and also have ways where people can have input into them.

One idea I have is people could suggest or vote on what data they would like me to obtain under the OIA, to work into a post. There’s a lot you can do in the crime and health areas, for example. So feel free to comment below if there is any particular area you’d be interested in seeing data on.

The Guardian reports:

Boris Johnson has opened the path to what he called one of the “biggest changes” to the British visa system, stating he was ready to offer a right to live and work in the UK to any of the nearly 3 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for a British National Overseas passport. …

The prime minister’s offer would come into play only if China presses ahead with new security laws that strip Hong Kong of its traditional freedoms.

Johnson wrote in the Times that if the security laws were pursued, “Britain would have no choice but to uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong”.

He said: “Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa free access for up to six months.

“If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship.”

He added: “This would amount to one of the biggest changes to our visa system in history. If it proves necessary Britain will take this step and take it willingly.”

This is a stunningly bold and good move.

If China proceeds, it risks losing half of Hong King’s population. The economy would be worse than decimated.

And the UK would gain a couple of million very grateful, hard working and well educated citizens. Over half the population already speak English.

Roger Partridge writes:

CS Lewis once warned that of all tyrannies, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies”.

The great 20th century writer might have been describing Forestry Minister Shane Jones’ new Bill to “fix” the forestry industry.

Great comparison.

Jones has decided the industry can’t fend for itself and needs an extra dose of regulation. Yet his actions suggest the industry’s interests are not his main priority. His innocuous sounding Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill will sacrifice the interests of forest owners – among them North Island iwi owners – in favour of utopian plans for an enhanced domestic wood processing sector, which Jones hopes will boost employment, especially in his homeland in the Far North.

The whole premise is the Ministers know better than the individual forestry businesses what people want to buy. Forestry companies tend to sell raw logs because that is what other companies want to buy. But Jones is saying oh no we must turn the logs into finished products and hey presto then they’ll buy those instead.

The Bill was introduced into Parliament under urgency on May 14. Indeed, Jones was in such a hurry that he gave the industry only a week to provide submissions to the Select Committee considering the Bill. (And for reasons best known to the Minister, the Environment Select Committee has been tasked with evaluating the Bill, not the better qualified Primary Production Select Committee.)

One week for submissions for a major law change. Disgusting. And the choice of committee is no doubt that the Government has a majority on one and not the other. They want to ram it through.

The Bill then proposes extensive regulation-making powers. Regulations may permit the Forestry Authority to set open ended “conditions of registration” and other rules imposing obligations on forestry owners, giving the Minister and the Authority a means of controlling the sale of logs by forest owners.

Using these rules, the new Forestry Authority could, for example, require forest owners to divert or withhold a proportion of their logs destined for international export markets to support Jones’ hoped-for new domestic timber processing industry, possibly even at subsidised “domestic” prices.

So instead of forestry companies being able to decide for themselves who they sell to, the Minister could then require them to see to local businesses in Northland at a subsidised price.

Unsurprisingly, in its submission the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee raised concerns about the consistency of the Bill with “fundamental constitutional principles and the rule of law.” Indeed, the Committee even raises concerns about the legitimacy of the provisions in the Bill which purport to grant regulation-making power to an “undefined private body.”

Maybe the intended body is the NZ First Foundation?

Politico reports:

Mattis called the decision to clear protesters in Lafayette Square an “abuse of executive authority” and said that Americans should “reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”

Mattis also urged the public to reject Esper’s characterization of American cities as a “‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate,’” referring to the defense secretary’s comments comments to governors on Monday. (Esper said on Wednesday that in retrospect he would have used different language “so as not to distract from the more important matters at hand or allow some to suggest that we are militarizing the issue.”)

Mattis noted that when he joined the military, he took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, and “never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

A reminder that General Mattis was in the Marine Corps for 44 years and commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War.

In the Persian Gulf War he commanded the 7th Marines assault battalion as a Lt Colonel. In Afghanistan he again commanded the 7th Marines as a Colonel and then the 1st Marines brigade as a Brigadier General. He was often found in a fighting hole with enlisted men in freezing weather.

In Iraq he commanded the 1st Marines as a Major General.

He has commanded US Joint Force Command, NATO and US Central Command as well as serving as Secretary of Defence.

It must take a lot for him to publicly criticise his sucessor.

I’ve embedded a survey below where you can rate the major media websites in NZ on whether or not you think they lean left or right, or are neutral.

There’s also a question on how your normally vote so we can breakdown the perceptions of each media outlet by how the respondents normally vote.

Results should be interesting, which I’ll blog here of course.

Stuff reports:

The Teaching Council is considering complaints made about an Auckland teacher who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat to Auckland’s Black Lives Matter march and posted a video on Facebook defending his actions.

The man, a teacher at Manukau Christian School, was one of thousands at the protest on Monday, which was organised in response to the death of George Floyd and in solidarity with a wave of protests across the US.

The Teaching Council should dismiss this complaint immediately.

Teachers are entitled to have a political opinion, including whether or not they like the President of the United States.

It is repugnant that people are trying to get a teacher disbarred, simply because they disagree with his choice of political apparel.

In case any uneducated snowflakes get offended by the headline, the quote in full is “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” from George Orwell’s Animal Farm and is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments.

The Herald reports:

The Police Minister says there’s “no place for racism in the New Zealand Police” and promises if instances are found, it will be weeded out.

Stuart Nash said he did not think there was systemic racism in the police.

He was asked today to explain the over-representation of Māori in police statistics and said “we are dealing with that at the moment”.

The over-representation is primarily because more crimes are committed. This is not the fault of Police.

Men are also massively over-represented in police statistics. This is not because the Police are sexist against men. It is because men commit more crimes.

There are legitimate issues around when Police use discretion, if they use diversion, what charges are laid. But any issues there make up only a small portion of the huge difference in offending rates.

Media who assume that the over-representation of a particular demographic in crime statistics must be the fault of the Police in some way, do the public a disservice.

Stuff reports:

Enforcing alert level 2 restrictions at the Black Lives Matter marches could have caused tension in an otherwise peaceful protest, says one of New Zealand’s top cops.

Oh my Goodness. If you enforce the law it might cause tension, so instead we let people break the law.

Schwalger said the police’s role is to ensure safety and uphold the law while recognising the lawful right to protest.

The trouble is it was an unlawful protest. Personally I think the protest should have been lawful, but the Government has kept us at Level 2, which meant the protest was unlawful.

Have just published the first of my monthly Patreon posts analysing how well positioned Governments are for re-election in Aus, Canada, NZ, UK and US.

The analysis takes a long time to compile – around six to seven hours as there are 30 different data sources. It’s a good example of the sort of stuff I ave been wanting to do more of.

The graphic above shows the summary, without the data and legend.

I’ll be doing a new post in the first week of every month.

Newshub reports:

The National Party has been leaked a recent Cabinet Committee paper that says New Zealand could be at alert level 1 already. 

It outlines the criteria for a move saying we need to have eliminated chains of transmission and had no new cases of community transmission for 28 days, and if that’s been achieved there’s no need for restrictions. 

“The permissive nature of the alert level 1 controls reflect it is predicated upon having eliminated chains of transmission and there have been no new cases from community transmission for at least 28 days,” it says. 

“If that has been achieved, and we have confidence in our border controls, there is theoretically no need for restrictions on people’s movements, interactions or activities.”

It’s now been longer than 28 days – the last community transmission case was 33 days ago. 

So Cabinet itself has been advised you can go to Level 1 after 28 days of no community transmission, yet they are keeping us at Level 2.

I have been sent a copy of a complaint to the Auditor-General about the Mayor of Hutt City. It raises very important issues around taking donations and conflicts of interest.

The Mayor is Campbell Barry. It relates both as a Councillor and Mayor. Mayor Barry stood on the Labour ticket.

My summary of the complaint is this:

• The E Tu union campaigns for Councils to adopt a “living wage” policy for Council staff and contractors. This obviously benefits many E Tu members and the union itself, if it occurs.
• On 7 June 2019 E Tu donated $5,000 to Barry’s election campaign. It was his largest donation (if you ignore his self-donation).
• Four days later in 11 June 2019 the Hutt Council met to decide whether or not to introduce a “living wage” for staff. Cr Barry spoke in favour and voted in favour of doing so. The vote was won on a split vote.
• Cr Barry did not disclose the E Tu donation (or his membership of E Tu) to his Council colleagues. He did not disclose any conflict of interest, despite both the donation and the membership being obvious conflicts.
• Cr Barry met with two officers of E Tu in private just prior to the vote.
• A further Council vote was held in December 2019, when Barry was Mayor, to extend the “living wage” to contractors. It was passed by just one vote – the Mayor’s whose successful campaign for Mayor was funded by E Tu. Again no disclosure was made of the donation or membership to the Council.

It would seem to me to be a no brainer that if four days before a Council meeting, to vote on a controversial issue, you receive a large donation from the major advocate to vote yes on the issue, you must disclose it as a conflict of interest.

Could you imagine the outrage if say a business lobby group dedicated to stopping the living wage donated $5,000 to a Councillor four days before the same meeting, and that Councillor met with them privately, and then voted against the living wage with no disclosure of the donation. The media would report this as a major scandal.

I’m not suggesting that Barry should have been unable to vote because of the donation or that the donations influenced his views. Money tends to follow policy, rather than policy follows money (except for one political party in Government). But absolutely Mayor Barry should have disclosed the donation as a conflict of interest so his colleagues would be aware he had just received $5,000 from the union pushing the living wage policy.

I will report further on the complaint once the Auditor-General determines how they plan to proceed.

David Fisher reports:

Photographs have emerged of the Prime Minister and director general of health posed for pictures close to wellwishers, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from a National Party MP warned by police for doing the same.

It has led to an admission from the Prime Minister it was a struggle to maintain “appropriate distancing” with people approaching wanting “handshakes and hugs”.

Bloomfield has also coughed to being in a photograph with strangers but says it was only for a moment.

The rules are for us to follow, not them, it seems.

Stuff reports:

A former police investigator is among a number of high-profile New Zealanders encouraging the country to vote Yes in the upcoming cannabis referendum.

The New Zealand Drug Foundation’s “Our Own Terms” campaign features Tim McKinnel, an investigator who helped prove Teina Pora’s innocence, alongside former Prime Minister Helen Clark, psychiatrist Hinemoa Elder and educator Richie Hardcore, among others.

“The system as it is now is a free-for-all, it’s unregulated and uncontrolled and forces people to dip their toes into the black market,” said McKinnel, who spent several years on the police drug squad.

“Police spend a great deal of time and money fighting cannabis, with helicopter recovery operations, or with uncovering underground growing operations. It’s a drain not only on policy but on our courts and prisons.”

He is supporting the Yes campaign because it will allow for stricter regulations.

“The Bill we are voting on is the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill. People tend to forget about the control part.”

This is a key point that the proposed law does in fact impose significant controls on the sale of cannabis, all of which are lacking in the illegal black market.

Stuff reports:

Countdown staff will be given a stake in the company.

The supermarket chain has announced it is awarding A$750 (NZ$808) of Woolworths Group shares to 14,400 Kiwi employees across 183 stores and distribution centres.

Australian-based Woolworths Group owns Countdown in New Zealand.

Countdown managing director Natalie Davis said the shares recognised the role staff played to keep the stores open during the lockdown.

What a great idea. I’m a big fan of having staff as shareholders.

Will cost Countdown around $12 million which is significant.

One News reports:

While the Ministry of Health doesn’t release details of where people have checked in, due to privacy concerns, the sheer number of scans of QR codes is recorded, albeit anonymously.

Since the app’s launch, each registered user has checked in on average just over one time.

The latest available figures requested from the Ministry of Health show that as of May 29, nine days after the app’s formal launch, users had scanned official NZ Covid Tracer QR codes 480,000 times.

However, on that same date, there were 446,000 accounts formally registered with the app.

I’m not surprised. The app seems okay but so few places are using it. Almost every place I go to uses a different system for checking in. It is frustrating.

The best one I’ve seen is the one where you don’t even have to enter an app, but you just open your camera in front of the QR code and it takes you to a webpage for checkin.

Stuff reports:

President Donald Trump, declaring himself a “president of law and order” has threatened o deploy the military to cities where, he said, governors and local officials have “failed to take necessary action” to end civil unrest.

“These are not acts of peaceful protest,” Trump declared during a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, referring to the demonstrations and sometimes violent acts that have broken out in dozens of major cities. “These are acts of domestic terror.”

Trump said he was dispatching “thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers” to end civil unrest.

Even as he declared himself an ally of legitimate protestors, police fired tear gas into peaceful crowds near the White House and advanced on horseback. Reporters in the Rose Garden could hear booms in the background. …

n private, however, during a call with governors on Monday, the president, who tweeted Saturday that looting leads to “shooting,” pushed for a harsher crackdown.

“Most of you are weak,” Trump said, berating the governors and urging them to “dominate” the protesters, according to a person on the call. He urged state officials to track down lawbreakers and send them to prison for five to 10 years.

A second person with knowledge of the call described the president as “bellicose,” raising the possibility of military action and describing the situation as a war. The message was echoed by Defence Secretary Mark Esper, who described the need to “dominate the battlespace,” language normally used to describe far-flung conflict zones instead of American streets.

Time for a sequel to Wag The Dog it seems.

Meet Mr Maka. At 3.45 am he drive to the home of his victims in Mangere. He didn’t even know them but his mate did.

He:

• pointed a gun at the chest of Ms Rogers and fired (was unloaded)
• punched an 18 year old repeatedly while on the ground
• punched a 23 year old and chased him and carried on punching him
• punched their stepfather knocking him to the ground and killing him

Maka is 24 years old and has six children. He claims to be a patched member of Black Power. The Department of Corrections assesses him as being at a high risk of re-offending.

For killing someone, assaulting two others and pointing a firearm he got 44 months prison. He will be eligible for parole in 15 months.